The subject matter disclosed herein relates to cleaning surfaces, including internal surfaces of gas turbines.
During operation of certain gas turbines, contaminants are often pulled into the turbine through inlets and may accumulate in internal, difficult to access places, such as rotors, compressors, lower and upper half shells and the like. Additionally, combustion byproducts of the consumed fuel may also accumulate in these places. Contaminants may negatively impact the efficiency of the turbine.
To maximize the efficiency of the turbine, it is desirable to periodically clean the internal, difficult to access places of the turbine. As cleaning necessarily results in downtime as the turbine is taken offline, it is desirable to minimize downtime by rapidly, yet thoroughly, cleaning the turbine.
Conventional cleaning techniques include hand-cleaning, dry ice cleaning and cleaning with wet steam. Hand-cleaning is the most common technique, but also the least effective. A significant amount of contaminants often remain in the difficult to access places. Dry ice cleaning is more effective than hand-cleaning but requires the use of several thousand pounds of dry ice be consumed. The logistics of keeping such a large amount of dry ice is problematic due to constant sublimation and large storage space. Wet steam cleaning is also more effective than hand-cleaning, but produces many gallons of waste water. The removal of such a large volume of waste water is a significant problem as the water is slow to evaporate.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.